In recent years, video cameras have been produced using integrated circuits of the type known as charge coupled device (CCD) and an electronic system for read out and electronic transmission of image representing signals from the CCD circuits.
This technique, which can easily be applied to a conventional photographic camera, allows the use of a magnetic medium for recording the image representing signals instead of a chemically processed photographic film.
Use of a magnetic recording medium (tape or disc) in an electronic camera has the great advantage of permitting immediate reproduction of the image on a television screen but simultaneously has important draw backs when compared with photographic films, e.g., no cutting is possible for editing and there is no random visual access.
Integrated circuit memories have come to be widely used in electronic equipment of all kinds and their sale price, presently, is only one/tenth of the sale price of only three or four years ago. In addition, the capacity of integrated circuit memories has been so greatly increased that they are now frequently used in electronic equipment, such as computers, in lieu of magnetic tape or discs.